


Transition Tears

by tigercry



Series: SAO Transition [1]
Category: Sword Art Online (Anime & Manga), ソードアート・オンライン - 川原礫 | Sword Art Online - Kawahara Reki
Genre: Best Friends, transition to IRL
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:35:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25244008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tigercry/pseuds/tigercry
Summary: The transition from SAO to IRL was always going to be hard and relationships were always going to be strained because of it. However, when Liz sees the state of her best friend after Asuna's fight with Kirito she can't help but want to slap some sense into the dense boy.
Relationships: Kirigaya Kazuto | Kirito/Yuuki Asuna | Asuna
Series: SAO Transition [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1828792
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16





	Transition Tears

**Author's Note:**

> Written before 2020

"You're getting a break!" Liz suddenly told Asuna who was sitting at one of the tables in Agil's cafe with school supplies surrounding her everywhere. "You're going to strain your eyeballs Asuna and then you'll have to wear those dorky glasses everywhere." She grasped Asuna's left arm and moved to tug her away from the pile of books, "come on, we're having a sleepover at my house starting right now!"

Asuna tugged her arm from Liz's grip, her reading not faltering once as she continued to study. "Leave me alone Liz," the long-haired girl grumbled and picked up her school tablet's stylus once again.

Liz felt a little bad, she had heard that Asuna and Kirito had had a fight about something or other and that Kirito had gone camping with his aunt and sister right after. So Asuna no doubt felt terrible as of right now and had since Wednesday. So she temporarily gave up and sat down across from Asuna with her chin resting on her hands, watching her.

Asuna studiously picked up her stylus and continued to fill out the assignment she was working on, working out the math problems without too much of a struggle and barely touching her calculator.

Okay, now Liz knew she felt really, really, bad. Asuna was known for her rather large expansive vocabulary and mind behind her tsundere personality and good looks, and yet Liz had noticed she had a habit of not using it unless she really wanted to. So she was used to Asuna using a calculator when she wasn't in the mood to really take her time or occupy her mind. "What's on your mind Suna?" she asked, using a nickname she had had for Asuna back in SAO, which had ended just over six months ago. It was still weird not being in SAO, where she got up every morning, said hello to the other inhabitants of the cabins on floor twenty-two, eat whatever Asuna had prepared for breakfast that morning, lingered around till about two unless they did a quest, and walked casually across to the street to her blacksmith shop where she made people smile with new weapons or made repairs for weapons. Even then, Liz knew she had nothing compared to what Asuna had had in the game and no doubt missed. Sure, she and the others, Sugu, Silica, Sinon _**(borrowing some of the Hollow Realization facts :P)**_ , Argo, and sometimes the hacker Caylee, were brought together to one place under Asuna and Kirito's direction for safety reasons, but it wasn't like they were just like them. Asuna and Kirito were married for a year in the three-year long game and had adopted Yui, their daughter. So Liz had little idea what they went through beyond the funny moments and little things she had witnessed herself before and after they were a couple and married.

_Liz had to bit her tongue to keep from laughing. She and Kirito had returned late from fighting the dungeon for the ingot for his new sword, and it looked like he had messed up which room was his. But it looked like he was already aware of that, judging by the rather nervous and scared expression the Black Swordsman had on his face at the moment. His eyes were wide open and staring now at Liz, not sure what to do, and Liz didn't blame him._

_Asuna was asleep next to him, with her back to his chest and her head resting on his upper arm. Her feet were tangled with his and her arms were curled around his arm near his wrist with a pillow wedged between her arms and pushed against her front. Kirito seemed to have had his free arm around her waist but had tried to remove it only to freeze in place. However, Asuna looked extremely comfortable stretched out in Kirito's embrace with his body heat keeping her warm with the blanket tangled at her ankles and partway off the bed._

_Liz put her hands over her mouth to stifle her giggles, this was priceless. Asuna had shyly admitted to her a little while ago after lots of begging and pleading that she was in love with Kirito, but she hadn't found out if it was just one-sided or Kirito loved her too. Which despite Liz's crush on Kirito, would be the best thing ever._

_Kirito looked pleadingly at her with onyx colored puppy eyes and tried to clearly get her to help him. He was probably terrified of what would happen if Asuna woke up to being pretty much spooned by him._

_Liz took no mercy on him and removed her hands from her mouth after quickly taking a picture with a photo crystal and uploading the picture to her SAO cloud. She hoped it would make it outside of SAO where she could tease them one day about it. She then cupped her mouth with one hand and leaned on one hip, a smirk covering her features. "Asuna! Kirito's being a perv!"_

_Asuna oddly enough didn't move more than an inch toward waking up. If anything, she mumbled something about annoying blacksmiths and used her arms to sleepily push herself closer to Kirito before she gave a soft sigh and her expression relaxed again._

_Kirito looked even more panicked at Asuna's nonexistant waking up and seemed to struggle to suppress a jolt when she pressed her back more firmly against his chest. The teenage boy awkwardly didn't move and looked at Liz in the same pleading manner, 'help me!'_

_Liz was surprised, usually, Asuna woke up right before eight like clockwork, but it was nearing ten now and Asuna was still asleep. "Jeez, did you give her a sleeping-draught or something? Wait, are those even in SAO?" She wondered briefly before she looked at Kirito, still speaking in a normal tone. "How am I supposed to help you, you're the one who collapsed in here instead of your room."_

" _Asuna will kill me!" Kirito hissed and looked a little nervously at her over Asuna's head. "Come on, I'll give you anything! I swear!"_

_Liz mulled it over before she shrugged her shoulders, "Alright, you owe me another Crystallite Ingot for a new sword for Asuna. However," she smirked cheekily, "if she wakes up I'm denying everything and telling her you came in here this morning and cuddled up to her."_

_Kirito paled and hesitated before he hastily agreed when Asuna shifted her position a little, twisting her head and relaxing back against his chest. "Okay, okay, but no trying to wake her up again, deal?"_

Liz was startled from her memories by the sound of Asuna putting her stylus on the table along with the red-rimmed glasses she currently had the bridge of her nose. Asuna wore glasses occasionally since she had escaped Sugou's grasp due to after effects from the three year and four-month long coma. Even then though, she didn't wear them often, only when she felt the stress she was under a lot more than normal, had a headache, or because she had strained her eyes.

"L-Rika," Asuna quickly corrected her habit in calling Liz by her SAO name, "do you need something besides pulling me away from my studies?" She asked in a rather tired and snappy tone like her patience had been tried enough this week.

Liz flinched at the unexpected tone and words from the caramel haired girl and frowned, "okay, what's wrong with you Asuna?" She demanded rather harshly, "I get that you're upset because of your fight with Kirito, but even I don't deserve to get the cold shoulder this time!"

Asuna looked blankly at her for a moment before she leaned back in her chair and sighed. The sound was tired and defeated like she was giving up. "I'm sorry," she apologized before she lifted on hand to rub tiredly at one of her rather sad amber eyes. "I know you don't and I didn't mean to do that to you."

Liz crossed her arms over her chest, "sounded pretty genuine to me."

Asuna winced and looked guiltily at her. "I'm sorry," she apologized for the second time and rubbed both of her eyes with both hands, "I'm just…" She took a moment to think and sighed again, "I'm _really_ tired," she finished lamely.

"Sounds more like you're beating yourself up for your fight with Kirito and him leaving," Liz pointed out and even glanced at the school tablet in front of Asuna to check a hunch. "You're even doing _his_ classwork and homework." Liz knew she hit the nail on the head when Asuna slumped her shoulders and tried to give a sheepish smile.

"You caught me," Asuna said with a rather bad attempt at a sheepish smile which dropped a moment later, "but I am really tired. I still feel terrible."

Liz leaned back in her chair and relaxed her body language, appearing less angry and more concerned. "All couples argue," she pointed out after scrutinizing Asuna's face. Asuna really did look tired, Liz hadn't really noticed before with how often Asuna had been hiding in a corner somewhere and avoiding everyone since her fight with Kirito. Asuna's usual confident aura seemed to flicker all the time, she had half hidden bags under her eyes, and she didn't have her signature braid at the back of her head done up.

Asuna looked even more miserable and lightly shrugged her shoulders, "sure, but not like this." She fixed her gaze on the table in front of her, "it's my fault anyway."

"How? It takes two people to argue unless you're arguing with a sock puppet," Liz snorted, now curious at what had happened to make Asuna so down in the dumps. She had heard a bunch of their bantering arguments and knew that they were both headstrong, Asuna more than Kirito, but not once had Kirito up and left for a few days while Asuna's guilt ate at her from the inside.

Asuna fidgeted and fixed her gaze more firmly on the table, "I don't want to talk about it…"

Liz looked at her for a moment, making Asuna squirm uncomfortably under Liz's gaze, and eventually spoke, "okay. But you have to come with me and relax for today. You're going to make yourself sick with all of your guiltiness and I'd rather not have a dorky glasses always wearing friend who's way too pretty to have those glasses making her nerdy."

Asuna smiled weakly, "okay, but I have to find Caylee first."

The mentioned hacker slid into a chair next to Liz, "I heard my name," the fellow SAO survivor said half vaguely before she nodded at Liz and smiled at Asuna, "what's up A-chan?" She said with the name she had taken from Argo.

Asuna pulled a thin thumb drive from her pocket and tossed it to her, a rather conflicted expression on her face, "will you take care of the project tonight instead of tomorrow?"

Caylee's eyebrows knitted together, "even though Kirito's not here? I thought it was supposed to boot up with him around?"

Asuna swallowed a little hard and shrugged, poking at the table, "it doesn't matter, it'll still be a surprise."

"Well yeah, but I was supposed to have it all set up so that it would boot up the moment a certain flash drive was plugged into the computer." Caylee pointed out but tucked the device into a pocket of her jeans, "and I could've sworn you wanted to make sure Yui was there too."

Asuna said nothing at the name of her and Kirito's SAO daughter, and human orphan, Yui. Instead, she looked harder at the table.

Liz could tell however that Asuna was about to cry, like the pressure and effects of everything this week was finally getting to her. Or perhaps getting to her again.

Caylee seemed to sense that too and stood up, "go with Liz," she pointedly called Liz by her SAO name, "rest up and relax. Yui going with Kirito instead of staying here to learn the Amosphere _is not_ your fault." She lightly patted Asuna on the shoulder and gave a glance at Liz, "neither is him being rather secretive and not telling you after you told him not to. I'll get this up and running tonight, shoot me a text when you're ready for it and I'll bring it over."

Liz's eyes widened as Caylee's words made the situation click in her head. _Holy Aincrad… Did Kirito really do that? That doesn't sound like Kirito at all! But if it was a surprise and Asuna was trying to not reveal the surprise and why she needed Yui to stay there and miss out on the camping trip then it does a little… That jerk! No wonder Asuna feels so crappy and lonely! Honestly, how could he defeat Heathcliff with a brain as messed up as his? He's messed up in the head!_

* * *

Liz's mouth was open in shock the entire time Asuna explained her argument with Kirito and how he was taken off with Yui without telling her. If she didn't know better that Kirito was indeed a good guy then she would've dragged him back home, called him more than a few rather ugly names, and punched a few times before getting Agil or Klein's help. "I'm sorry, but this whole thing makes Kirito sound like a major jerk Asuna," she told her friend as she perched on her mound of pillows in the middle of their half unstable blanket fort and braided Asuna's long hair. She sometimes wished she had as thick and long hair as Asuna did, Asuna could do so many things with her hair while Liz's was too short and usually curly and frizzy to do much more than try and tame it.

"It's not his fault," Asuna instinctively defended the black haired boy, "I should've told him what the secret was instead of seeming all selfish and everything."

Liz lightly shook her head, "you shouldn't have to explain yourself after you stated simply that it was a surprise. That should be reason enough." She finished Asuna's braid, let the braid go, and rested her hands on her friends mostly bare shoulders, "he's known you for how long? He should be able to figure out by now that you're not trying to be selfish and prevent Yui from experiencing things she hasn't experienced before."

"I know," Asuna said quietly and shifted her position so that she was facing Liz properly. "I guess I'm just not used to the shift in the dynamic of our relationship." She flopped onto her back onto the pillow covered carpet and placed one arm over her eyes. "I'll never get used to it."

Liz smiled sadly at her and scooted off her pillow mound to be leaning against it instead, "you guys were _married_ , of course, it's weird. Frankly, I'd be surprised if it wasn't," she rather playfully nudged Asuna and teased her, "is it the same in VR and IRL?"

Asuna didn't react like Liz had expected her to. Instead of blushing red or stammering or even hiding her face, Asuna responded in a rather flat tone. "I wouldn't know."

Liz blinked, and then blinked again. "Wait, how come you're not red or something? You always go red at any kind of, well, you know."

Asuna lightly shrugged her shoulders, "I'm tired of the real world. So why should I care about what you're suggesting?" The caramel haired girl looked more tired than ever in her current position. Even after the goofy movies Liz had made her watch and the ability to get everything off her chest, Asuna looked flat out exhausted.

"You're kidding?" Liz said and sat up completely, "come on Asuna, you have to be joking. You're tired of _the real world?_ Where we're not trapped in a death game."

"It wasn't just a death game," Asuna muttered behind her arm, "you and I know it better than a lot of people."

"Yeah but still, isn't this where we're supposed to be? In the real world as teenagers with lots of homework and crappy romance lives beside you and Kirito?"

Asuna sat up as well and looked at Liz, she had defeat shining in her eyes, like she didn't want to keep struggling against the real world's problems every day. "Mine isn't as great as you think it is," she said quietly and looked down at her lap. "And is this really where we belong? I mean I still think I'm a fencer and swordswoman somewhere in my mind and heart and I'm sure you think you're a blacksmith too."

Liz looked a little startled, "okay, what about it? And you have literally the perfect relationship Asuna, how is yours not as great as it seems to be?"

Asuna waved her hands, "one thing at a time!" A moment of her normal personality comforted Liz a little bit, having Asuna this depressed was depressing in of itself. "I can't adjust to living here in the real world," she explained, "I'm so used to living in SAO with Kirito, Yui, you, and everyone else that I'm struggling to wrap my head around that it wasn't real."

Liz sighed and went with the topic Asuna had chosen, "I guess that makes sense, sometimes I struggle too. It's like not everything clicks after the three years in SAO."

Asuna nodded, "exactly. I can't help but feel like I'm living in a different reality than the one I'm actually in while I'm in the real world, I mean I'm happy that I'm not trapped in a game that will kill you if you die, but at the same time it made it feel like it was real. That SAO was a real world and we were all real inhabitants of a world where we all had a place and had special relationships."

Liz leaned back against the couch, one side of their fort, "I see your point. If I had a choice I'd probably go back to SAO too."

Asuna nodded and took a deep breath before she spoke next, "have you ever had the opportunity to have something for a long time only to find it snatched away beneath your very nose? Leaving you with a ghost of what you had actually had? That's what Kirito and I's relationship feels like right now." She fixed her gaze firmly on her lap despite the tears welling in her amber eyes, "A ghost of what we had in SAO."

Liz's breath caught, now she got it. When it was explained like that it made sense why Asuna was so miserable right now and why she out of everyone was struggling the hardest to readjust to real life. "Because you two were married…" She whispered in a hushed tone, realizing part of what Asuna really meant.

"I'm happy we're still together," Asuna told her despite the tears beginning to drop down her face and how she was gripping handfuls of a blanket till her knuckles went white, "but I can't… I can't help but miss what we had in SAO!" Her voice raised in pitch but lowered in volume and she squeezed her eyes shut. "I w-want to be back in the cabins where I c-can wake up next to him and know that he's there," the slightly younger girl half blubbered, struggling to control her emotions with how much they were weighing her down. "I want to b-be close to him again and share those little m-moments with him that made e-everything worth it!" Her body trembled and she ducked her head, shaking as she continued. "I want to live with him and Yui every day and be able to know w-without any kind of doubt that he l-loved me and that no matter the n-number of girls that seemed to l-like him, he loved _me_. Just me."

Liz's heart wrenched painfully, all of this was hard to hear, and not because she had a crush on Kirito. She could see what Asuna was talking about, and could recognize how difficult it was for Asuna to go through this. Sure Asuna and Kirito were close. As close as could be in the real world when they were teenagers struggling with Asuna's parents and learning to adjust to the real world, but it wasn't the same. And Liz was seeing it now. "Asuna," Liz said in a rather soothing tone and scooted over to her friend to pull her into a hug.

"A-and that I w-was there, every day, with him," Asuna sobbed with her eyes squeezed shut. "I love Kirito so much, but it hurts knowing that here, in this world, he's not really mine here, and I'm not really his! Our situation is so delicate here in this world! While in SAO, we were married, always together, and we both had Yui with us all the time!"

Liz pulled Asuna into a hug, hugging her tightly and wishing under every star in the Aincrad sky that Asuna would be free from the pain she was feeling.

Asuna cried into Liz's shoulder, "I want to go back! I want to go back to SAO, Liz!"

Liz hugged her tighter and closed her brown eyes as well, swallowing the growing lump in her throat at her best friend's pain. "I know you do, I know you do Asuna…"


End file.
